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The spectacular scale and speed of China's domestic renewable energy capacity development and technology catch-up has in recent years been followed by the 'go out' of Chinese clean energy technology firms seeking new markets and opportunities in sub- Saharan Africa. This paper explores the growing involvement of China in the development and transfer of renewable energy technologies in Africa and examines the key drivers and obstacles shaping Chinese renewable energy investments and exports. Far from there being some kind of grand or harmonious strategy directed by a single monolithic state, we argue that fragmented and decentralised state apparatuses and quasi-market actors in China are increasingly pursuing their own independent interests and agendas around renewable energy in Africa in ways often marked by conflict, inconsistency and incoherence. Moving beyond the state-centric analysis common in much of the research on contemporary China-Africa relations, we examine the motivations of a range of non-state and quasi-state actors, as well their different perceptions and constructions of risk, policy environments and political stability in recipient countries. The paper explores the case study example of South Africa, where Chinese firms have become increasingly significant in the diffusion of renewable energy technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trade ties between Italy and Eritrea is important for both countries. This paper analyzes the extents and characteristics of regional trade relationship between Eritrea and Italy. Attention is given to the regions and products where there is high potential for export and import. Other socioeconomic opportunities, which may give rise to the trade link between the two countries, are also mentioned briefly. The main aim is Eritrea a former Italian colony can be a springboard for Italy to expand its commercial activities to other Italian colony in the horn of Africa. It can be an opener of the market in Italy with all Italian and non-Italian colonies in the horn of Africa. Eritrea has become an Italian trade associate especially in terms of cotton cement and other commodities. Unlike Eritrean exports, trade imports from Italy have been progressing rapidly. Lack of demand for import machineries and transport equipment may be the main cause for the reduction of exports to Eritrea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary To investigate whether Africa’s exports to China influence labor practices in Africa, we reconsider the debate over trade’s influence on regulatory standards in exporting countries. The first generation of trade–regulation scholars asked whether high levels of exports influenced regulatory standards of exporting countries, with inconclusive results. The second generation of scholarship focused not on how much a country exported but to whom it exported, identifying a “California Effect” by which firms and consumers in (mostly developed) importing countries projected their high regulatory standards on less developed export partners. Structural change—especially the rise of China as a major importer—poses a challenge to these optimistic findings. Drawing on insights from the analysis of compositional data, this paper introduces a third generation of trade–regulation research, which suggests examining not only with whom a country trades, but also how the composition of markets in a country’s export basket reshuffles over time. Specifically, we explore the possibility of a “Shanghai Effect” whereby African countries begin to reflect the lower labor standards of China, which has emerged as a major destination for their exports. We show that when a country increases exports to China, the net effect on domestic labor standards depends critically on the labor practices of other export destinations compositionally displaced by China exports. Our analysis of a panel of 49 African countries for the period 1985–2010 produces a small continent-wide estimate of China’s negative influence on African labor practices. In-sample simulation at the country level uncovers a moderate Shanghai Effect for a handful of countries only. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In seeking to maintain their power, many African regimes rely on strategies of extraversion, converting their dependent relations with the external world into domestic resources and authority. This article assesses the relationship between extraversion and political liberalization, a dimension of African democratization that has been somewhat underappreciated in recent empirical studies. African countries vary in their extraversion portfolios, or the dimensions of their relations to the outside world that they can instrumentalize, and these variations correspond both to different degrees of vulnerability to the demands of foreign donors and to different preferences from the donors themselves. We find four quantitative measures of extraversion vulnerability to be statistically associated with the initial transitions of the 1989–1995 period and with the ‘consolidations’ at different levels of democracy observable between 1995 and 2011. These findings shed new light on both democratic and hybrid regime trajectories in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]